Aeris

Session 5-6: Perils of the Sky

Or, EXPLOSIONS!

9

MAY/16

The party continues their journey on their airship, the Pegasus, maintaining course while continuing to be pursued by a rival airship. They briefly pause to provide aid to a ship in dire need – a Utopian trading vessel named Lady Luck. After some deliberation, the crew decides to provide supplies, including a new mainsail, while Corrin provides healing, before continuing on their course.

Soon after, the ship finally hits a sudden, fierce storm. Captain Alvarez uses this opportunity to change course toward the party’s real target of Belisayre, hoping to lose the enemy ship in the storm. The weather is fierce, with high winds, thunder, lightning and frigid rain all testing the crew’s will to survive. There are some close scrapes as Lammy rescues a crew member, Ellie and Zev de-ice the windvanes, and the whole party pitches in to help repair the mainsail. In the end, a single life is lost in the storm. As the thunder and rain abate, the soggy and exhausted crew begin to repair the ship and get things back in order when …

A pirate ship emerges from a fog bank, heading straight for the Pegasus! The crew barely has time to react. Ghaz gets a shot off with the fire ballista before the pirate ship swoops low overhead, with sky pirates leaping off their deck to board the Pegasus with grappling hooks and feather fall. The party is able to repel the first wave of boarders – Ghaz puts a pirate to sleep in midair, while Ammar and Lammy sever the ropes of others, sending the brigands falling to their doom. Then, battle is joined with the second wave of pirates, as the party and the crew of the Pegasus clash in midair!

The pirates are a ragtag bunch, with several colorful and dangerous characters – a pair of brothers in sleeveless leather jerkins, one who juggles throwing axes and one who wields an enormous ball and chain, as well as a warforged with a black bandana and fists of ice, and their captain is a mage with a flowing coat, triangular hat and a powerful magic staff. The party focuses their attention on these pirates while the crew duels with the remainder of the pirates back and forth across the deck.

After a short, swashbuckling fight, the pirates are beaten back. The captain, under threat from Myrrh and Ammar, leaps off the ship with the warforged and flies toward his ship. However, Ghaz returns to the fire ballista and lines up the perfect shot, getting a lucky hit and striking the pirate ship in a critical location at the base of one of its windvanes. Sudden destruction of the ship’s windvane sends the ship into a tailspin, as the ship and remaining pirate crew careen downward toward certain death far below. The pirate captain, with nowhere to turn, returns to the Pegasus and surrenders himself. The party lock the remaining pirates in the brig and resume their journey, having survived their first sky pirate attack!